India, B'desh not to ink deal on Teesta waters during PM visit

NEW DELHI: India and Bangladesh will not sign a deal on sharing of waters of Teesta river during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in the wake of strong reservations to the move voiced by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

"The deal on Teesta will not be signed in this visit. Unless we find something which is acceptable to everybody, there is no point signing the agreement," highly-placed sources told journalists accompanying Singh to Dhaka this morning.

They said "there is no point of having an agreement just for the sake of agreement and the Centre has to engage the West Bengal government more intensively and sit with the Bangladesh government to thrash out a deal".

"We need more time and need to sit with both West Bengal government and Bangladesh to arrive at an acceptable agreement," said the sources.

Asked about reports that Mamata had objected to giving Bangladesh 33,000 cusecs of water, as mentioned in the final draft of the interim treaty for Teesta water-sharing instead of 25,000 cusecs in the initial draft, the sources made it clear that no figure was mentioned in any draft.

Mamata opted out of the visit to Bangladesh with Singh as she was stated to be upset with the final draft of the Teesta water-sharing treaty, creating a diplomatic embarrassment for the Prime Minister on his maiden bilateral visit to Bangladesh.